Tag: pain management

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Have A Body? Lose Control

Only a few more weeks of the early-registration fee of $295 for the Breitenbush retreat focusing on the issues we have with our bodies….more on that in a minute! After May 1st the registration fee goes up to $350. We have an amazing group forming. The retreat is limited to 14. The fee I just mentioned is the tuition…everyone coming phones Breitenbush to reserve your chosen accommodations (tent platform or your own bungalow?) and delicious meals.

Click HERE to read all about it.

What does it mean to do The Work on The Body?

Well….have you ever had a stressful thought about your body? A thought that when you think it, you experience discomfort of any kind?

Spending some time with the stress about having a body like yours can be quite revealing. Thoughts about the body are so critical, agonizing, and painful…and then, we’ll have thoughts about ourselves and how we really shouldn’t HAVE these critical thoughts about our bodies.

First the thought, as I pass the glass window on the street “gosh, your butt looks too big” or “wow, your face really is looking old these days”. Then the thought “I can’t believe you’re not OVER criticizing your looks at your age, you should know not to care”. Then the thought “I need to relax, take care of my superficial thoughts, handle my health better”.

And so on. The cycle of “thinking” in a compulsive way along the lines of things not being good the way they are.

Especially this body. So imperfect and so frail.

Bodies can be the entry point into awakening like no other. With this thing I live in, called a body, I am aware of my need to be attractive to other humans, my desire to be attractive to myself, my frailty, pain, weakness, the smallness or temporariness of being in this body..death and impermanence.

My thoughts about my body are, in fact, thoughts about life and death. They all lead to the most profound, similar place.

For me, the mind can start spewing thoughts so quickly on the body, it’s faster than a speeding bullet!

  • I wish I were twenty years younger again
  • I don’t have enough time (here on the planet)
  • my hip should stop hurting
  • I need to do yoga, stop aging, have zero pain
  • dying is not going to be fun or easy
  • I hate when other people die
  • I hate feeling bad, I never want to get sick again
  • my face shouldn’t have wrinkles, my hair shouldn’t turn gray, my feet shouldn’t hurt

The list goes on. There are cures, too, around every corner. You can start in on all kinds of ways to “solve” the “problem” of having this condition.

And yet, as I inquire over time, even on the dumbest most mundane thoughts about my body, I get such insight and love for this thing that it becomes simple, easy, and not a source of regret or wishful thinking.

I love being exactly in this body, at this time, at this age, with these little feelings and conditions. It’s magnificent…it’s surrender. I see how it does not take changing or altering this body to experience joy, love, acceptance, connection, intimacy and peace.

Doing The Work on the body leads to the grandest, most wonderful questions and awareness that I am not this body, there is much more here….and that for some reason, this whole thing is temporary.

What if your thoughts looked instead for the benefits in your condition? The opposite sort of experiences?

  • I wish I were twenty years older…I’d be closer to that fun moment called death (or croaking) that I’ve heard a zillion things about but will only experience once
  • I have all the time I would ever need on this planet, in this lifetime
  • my hip should keep hurting, it’s a sensation that’s speaking
  • I don’t need to do anything, I need to keep aging (that would be weird to stop aging), I need to have great pain and notice I can learn to relax with it, and that it leaves
  • dying is going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done…I won’t even be doing it (finally it won’t be up to me, kinda like life if I really think about it)
  • I experience great love when other people die (so far, always true)
  • I’m open to feeling physically bad, I’m open to getting sick again…there are advantages and I can find them
  • my face should have wrinkles, my hair should turn gray, my feet should hurt…I get to have this amazing aging experience in this life (vs die young).

By having this body, as it does exactly what it does, I get to see how nature works in this particular form. I get to respond to this particular body, I get to feel what reality/God/source is offering through this body.

I get to see how much more I am than this body. This mind doing its amazing thing…wondering, exploring, feeling, sensing. Body and mind and beyond all interacting. A great mystery.

The most amazing thing is how free I am, even with this body. Everyone is.

“Now sweetheart, close your eyes, and go to the place where you are very, very ill….Now see if you can locate the place that doesn’t care. The place that really isn’t bothered by it. It’s there. See if you can locate it—the part of you that is unaffected. The part of you that just watches. Go back to the last time you were in so much pain and see if you can locate it……Go back with it again. It’s a part—no matter how much pain you’re in—it’s witnessing, watching…..Good. That’s the one that cares nothing for control. So let that one grow. It cares nothing for control.”~Byron Katie 

Inquiring into your thoughts about your body, you may find very quickly that you are inquiring about what it means to be alive, and to know you will die.

For me, this is spiritual awakening. Surrender, gratitude…the freedom of not caring.

Do The Work on your body and have a glorious time caring nothing for what everyone else thinks, what you think. (Join us at Breitenbush).

“If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial. If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked. If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. If you want to be reborn, let yourself die. If you want to be given everything, give everything up.”~Tao Te Ching #22

Love, Grace

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Welcoming and Entertaining Pain, Sickness and Death

I don’t always email on Sundays, but I know many of you have been waiting very patiently for the new tele course Pain, Sickness and Death… 

Yes, you read that correctly, if this is new to you. This will be looking in depth at some of our greatest, most frightening, terrified observations and thoughts about being here on this planet.

Our relationship to death, dying, disease, and pain of any form.

If you are interested and have hopes that the class is offered in a certain time zone that works for you, let me know. Since I live in Pacific time, it’ll have to be during my waking hours.

I have to admit, part of me is solidly and defiantly interested in NOT thinking about pain, sickness or death.

Gosh..can’t we just look at the fun parts of life? I mean, do I HAVE to look in-depth at death, trauma, accidents, cancer, pain, losing people, wars, destruction? JEEZ.

I’d rather go to the beach.

In fact, I’ve spent a fair amount of time kicking and screaming and doing everything possible (eat, drink, smoke, distract) to NOT look at these subjects.

But what I notice, and I bet you do too, is that most of us are very, very interested in these topics. And actually, making peace with them, even just a little, is astonishing in how it makes life look more beautiful somehow.

Everyone has had contact with death, sudden change, or pain. Nobody escapes it.

In the past year I have done the work several times on a terrible and intense stomach pain I occasionally experience. I have gone to the doctor to have it checked and had the colonoscopy (I had some beliefs about that all by itself).

It’s a pain that has come and gone for about 10 years, sometimes being so strong in the beginning that I was doubled over and writhing, not able to walk, and breaking out in a sweat.

Over time, I actually one day when having this pain had the thought “is this true?” in the middle of the wave of experiencing it. How odd to even remember the question. It just came into my mind!

And then the thought “I can’t relax, this is horrible”. And seeing that maybe that was not true either. Could I actually relax in the middle of this pain?

I could. Weird. Hard to describe. And then it vanished.

It has come back since then, and I feel open to it. Like “oh…here YOU are, whatever you are, hows it going?”

This feels very different, certainly a completely unusual way of feeling the sensation of pain than I ever felt before. The feeling was still there, but I also thought I was OK at the very same time.

“This being human is a guest house, every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, becasue each has been sent as a guide form beyond.”~Rumi The Guest House

The Work is about welcoming and entertaining them ALL. When the monsters and sorrows and physical agony are allowed here…who knows what can happen.

Love, Grace

Learn About Teleclasses Here

Click here to register for any of these classes online. You can also send an email to grace@workwithgrace.com if you’d prefer to mail a check or want to ask questions.

  • Earning Money: What’s Your Problem? Questioning Your Beliefs About Money, Work and Business. Mondays, February 4-April 1, 2013, 7:30 – 9:00 am Pacific time. 8 weeks $395. No class March 4th.
  • Our Wonderful Sexuality: Untangling the Passion, Attraction, Love, Past Terrors, Future Worries, Fear, Confusion, Tenderness, and Joyful Intimacy. Tuesdays, January 22 – March 12, 2013, 6:30 – 8:00 pm Pacific time. 8 weeks $395.
  • Horrible Food Wonderful Food: Healing the Love/Hate Relationship with Eating, Food, and Our Bodies. Fridays, January 18 – March 15, 2013 Noon – 1:30 pm Pacific time. 8 weeks. No class 2/22.
  • Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven: Working With Painful Hate, Anger, Fury, Despair, Grief, or Disappointment With Someone You Know; Spouse, Mother, Sibling, Father, Daughter, Son, Boss, Neighbor, Friend. Fridays, March 29-May 17, 2013 8:00 am – 9:30 am Pacific time. 8 weeks $395.